


The Parts of a Friendly Letter

by significantowl



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, Fluff, Gen, Letters, Pen Pals, Tiny Dinosaurs, Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-17
Updated: 2017-02-17
Packaged: 2018-09-25 01:14:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9795788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/significantowl/pseuds/significantowl
Summary: The letter Foggy gets from Matt is typed, with an uphill, printedM a t tbeneath theSincerelyat the bottom. Everyone’s kind of jealous that Foggy gets to pen pal with an actual local celebrity and genuine hero, and he ends up folding the letter about fifty times to make it as tiny as absolutely possible before stuffing it way down in his pocket. Because Matt’s not to be gawked at. Because Matt’shis.[For the prompt: bby!Foggy making a Valentine's card for his penpal who lives at the local orphanage, bby!Matt.]





	

**Author's Note:**

> For forlorn-kumquat's prompt at tumblr. ♥
> 
> Claiming this as a fill for the wild card square on my [Daredevil Bingo](http://daredevilbingo.dreamwidth.org) card, using the prompt "tiny dinosaurs" from the prompt list, and as a fill for the February Challenge, too.

Foggy's not stupid. He knows that Ms. McMurray is reading every letter he and his classmates write before sending them off to their pen pals at St. Agnes’, checking for content and conduct befitting a M.S. 214 student, not to mention grammatical errors that would reflect poorly on her classroom. So when Brett asks, “Doesn't it bug you that some nun’s gonna be reading every word of that out loud to him?” the answer is an easy no, and not just because being contrary to Brett is basically bred into Foggy's bones by now. 

He does put a little more effort into his penmanship after that, maybe. And his spelling. Foggy doesn't really know any nuns personally, but tv and movies have sent him some strong messages, and he doesn’t so much mind Matt knowing that he misspelled “destination” (for example) as the idea of a nun head-shaking and casting aspersions upon his person to Matt because of it.

(The _destination_ of their fall class field trip is the Statue of Liberty. Foggy isn’t sure if Matt ever saw the view from the top before he lost his peepers, but he definitely didn’t see it as Foggy did on that particular day, with a jostling herd of middle schoolers providing a chaotic backdrop for panoramic views of the harbor and Manhattan’s skyscrapers, all under a startlingly blue sky. But when Foggy’s done writing, maybe he can.)

The first letters, the September letters, are basic hi-my-name-is sorts of things. The one Foggy gets from Matt is typed, with an uphill, printed _M a t t_ beneath the _Sincerely_ at the bottom. Everyone’s kind of jealous that Foggy gets to pen pal with an actual local celebrity and genuine hero, and he ends up folding the letter about fifty times to make it as tiny as absolutely possible before stuffing it way down in his pocket. Because Matt’s not to be gawked at. Because Matt’s _his_.

At the dinner table that night, Foggy thinks about it out loud, says something like, “I wonder how come I got him?” and, “He doesn’t just go to school there, he lives there, his dad died. His mom too I guess, I don’t know, I won’t talk about it unless he does or something,” and, “Everyone’s writing about their favorite tv shows in the next letter, but I think, yeah, I’m gonna ask him about books -”

Which is around the point that his little sister says, “Oh my God, shut _up_ ,” and Foggy looks up from his pork chop to fire back at her in time to see his mom smiling softly, and hear his dad say, “Nope, no idea why he got him,” with his own quiet smile.

So there are letters about books. Foggy’s kinda into Lloyd Alexander at the moment, _The Black Cauldron_ in particular, and Matt seems to be working his way through all the biographies the New York Library for the Blind will send him. Which isn’t quite as exciting to Foggy as witches and undead armies, but he gets a question right on a social studies quiz just because of Matt, so that’s cool. Then there’s the field trip to report on, and then the Major League Baseball post-season threatens to consume Foggy’s mind, as it has each year since he was old enough to pick up a bat - Matt turns out to be knowledgeable on the subject, which is nice, but a little too harshly realistic about the Mets’ chances for Foggy’s tastes. 

Foggy says as much, then ends up holding his breath for two weeks, hoping he hasn’t hurt Matt’s feelings. The letter he gets back begins with _Truth hurts :)_ , and Foggy somehow manages to sigh with relief and sputter with indignation all at once.

Before Foggy knows it, it’s Thanksgiving, and he finds himself having more trouble with this letter than with any yet. For him, Thanksgiving is usually pretty great - food, sleeping, more food, more sleeping - but for Matt, he just... doesn’t know.

And maybe this Thanksgiving’s a little less great than usual for Foggy, because he keeps getting distracted. Thinking about what it would be like if there was an extra chair pulled up beside his at the table; if Matt was sitting beside him, shoveling in Foggy’s mom’s pumpkin pie. If they went to Foggy’s room after dinner and played games - Foggy has always been good in family Trivial Pursuit tournaments, but he has a feeling Matt would kick his _ass_. If they shot Nerf pellets at each other, because he also has a feeling that nobody had done that with Matt lately - Foggy had two face masks, and anyway had been hit in the face enough times by his sisters know it wasn’t all that bad, so why not?

In December, Matt’s letter is heavy on the Catholic part of “goes to a Catholic school” and “lives in a Catholic orphanage.” There are nighttime Advent services, apparently, on top of the usual twice-a-week Mass, and the church is cold at night, but Matt likes listening to singing, and the way it echoes off the cold stone. There’s also a Nativity play to practice for; Matt is a shepherd with no lines, and spends the whole time standing in one spot. 

Foggy’s school has a student-scripted play about Santa and his fleet of hyperspace reindeer. Foggy is a North Pole weatherman.

The teacher hands out candy canes and holiday pencils for Foggy and his classmates to attach to their December letters. They’d been gently encouraged against bringing extra gifts from home, when many of their pen pals might not have similar opportunities to shop, but when the moment comes, sending something so generic feels almost worse than sending nothing at all, so Foggy digs in his backpack and comes up with a small plastic Stegosaurus to slip in, too. 

He's glad he did when he opens his letter from Matt and a small, intricately folded red paper box falls out. Inside is a gray pebble, perfectly oval, perfectly smooth.

The stone makes a small but noticeable weight in his pocket, one Foggy immediately likes. Like he's carrying a little piece of Matt with him, every day.

Ms. McMurray is very firm about their January letters. They're not supposed to be about “what I got for Christmas;” they're supposed to focus on resolutions. Foggy’s not usually what you'd call a resolutions kid, but again, he's not stupid: a) it's nearly the end of the semester, and a copy of this letter is probably going in a file someplace as an “authentic writing assessment,” and b) it would take a special kind of jerk to brag about his Christmas to Matt. Foggy is not that jerk.

Maybe Matt's been given a special assignment too, or maybe not, but what arrives for Foggy near the end of January is a story, not a letter. It begins with a dinosaur named Stego venturing out of his dark cave one day to explore the world. He never expects to meet anyone walking around on two legs who isn't a raptor, but that's just what happens; he meets a friendly creature down by the shore who claims he's from another time. He has a box in one pocket that makes harmonious sounds (a Discman, Foggy reads between the lines), and another that he keeps jabbing at with his thumbs that makes all sorts of wild beeping (Game Boy?).

There are enough details about the dinosaur’s diet, weight, size, and armored plates to make Foggy wonder if Matt is as into the Late Jurassic period as he is into more recent history. Although maybe he just likes having his facts straight. 

Or… does he think that’s the kind of thing that would impress Foggy? 

Anyway, when they do inevitably run into some raptors, Stego knocks them to the earth with furious sweeps of his tail. There are a lot of specific descriptions of what each blow feels like, and the crunches and thuds that Stego hears when each dino hits the ground. Then the creature chases the last one away with the strange noises from his high-pitched beeping machine, and Stego and the creature live to have adventures on other days, and those days are the best of all.

Foggy’s stomach does a twisty, flippy thing. He folds up the story - _his_ story, the one Matt created for _him_ \- small, small, small. In the meantime, he remains perfectly chill on the outside - it's not like this is Foggy's first day of middle school, he’s got some experience in the area of trying to act chill while feeling far from it.

Ms. McMurray has them open their reading books to a short story about people who get lost on the way to the top of Mount Everest. Foggy's read ahead - people go nuts and eat each other, or at least, the cannibalism is heavily implied - and it’s a good thing, too, because his brain refuses to zero in on survivalist fiction. It's fizzing and popping, and the only thing that settles it down is making plans. February is coming.

Foggy's taking drama as his elective this year, but Mr. Vang, the art teacher, doesn't hold that against him. “You remember where everything is,” he says, waving a hand towards the back of the classroom after Foggy explains his mission.

Brett must never know that he wasn’t entirely wrong, but truth be told, it’s suddenly bugging the crap out of Foggy that some nun’s standing between Foggy's words and Matt’s ears. Since reading that story, it’s like Matt’s voice has been ringing inside his head, strong and true, clearer than ever before. Foggy wants - he _needs_ \- to give the same back to Matt, and if part of the twisting in his gut is the fear Matt won't like what he hears… he can ride out that fear. 

Is Matt doing the same thing, right now?

Foggy spends a lunch period with colored pencils, construction paper, scissors, and glue, and another with puffy paint (Mr. Vang definitely still likes him: paint doesn’t come cheap). He goes for style over realism, drawing a Stegosaurus standing up on its hind legs, front legs stuffed into boxing gloves, every detail outlined in thick, easy to trace paint. He uses the paint to write a message on the front, too, in clear, blocky caps: 

_REAL CHAMPS EAT PLANTS_

and on the inside of the card:

_AND CANDY. DON’T FORGET THE CANDY._

Then for the final detail - it's traditional, and all the mass-produced Valentine cards Foggy’s classmates are going to use will have one on it, so there's no reason for his hand to be shaking - he draws a careful heart.

With that, the card’s finished. But Foggy's not done yet.

For the next bit, he has to lock himself in his bedroom after school, because both his sisters are straight-up pains in the rear. And he has to work fast, while they're both distracted by something on tv, or else they'll hear him through the apartment’s less-than-thick walls. He crouches down in front of his stereo, slips a blank cassette in, and presses the record button. He doesn’t have time to think, or overthink. _Go._

“Hey, Matt, it’s Foggy here, um. I hope you like candy, because when you opened the envelope you should’ve had, like. A candy explosion on your hands. Mount St. Valentine. Hah. Um. Unless one of the -” Foggy quickly edits _shitheads_ down to - “punks in my class went into the teacher’s desk and stole all the candy out of the envelopes, because that’s actually _preeeetty_ likely, now that I think about it, sorry man. Miniature chocolate bars bring out the beast in us all, right?

“Anyway, I.... I was thinking, we probably only live like five or six blocks away from each other, and, um, it might be cool to hang out in the flesh sometime? I mean, I don’t know how it would work, but my mom’s kinda amazing at sweet-talking people, we could put her on the case -” Crap, is he backing Matt into a corner? What if he doesn't want to meet up with a babbling fool? _Crap_ \- “Or imagine the hijinks! Picture this: you leave some altar boy robes out on the back stoop. I sneak in, see how long it takes before they make me for a terrible Catholic and throw me out on my butt.

“So, um, I hope you're halfway into a candy coma by now, and your Valentine's Day is great, and, I’ll. Talk to you later? Yeah. Bye?”

Hitting the stop button is the only thing capable of putting Foggy out of his misery. His fingers fumble it, but when the tape finally stops rolling, he drops his head between his knees and breathes.

The last stage of the plan involves sidling up to Ms. McMurray after class to ask if she’ll pull out the card he'd filled out at his desk during composition time and make a substitution. Foggy's a little worried about relative size, and weight - although he’s not the only one to go wild on candy; he's seen chocolate kisses, candy bars, and boxes of conversation hearts go into his classmates’ envelopes - and he’s not sure about the ethics of offering a teacher cash for anything, but he does have five bucks he could put towards excess postage. 

If there's any issue with the spoken vs. written word format of his message, Foggy's prepared to argue that the writing he'd done at his desk fulfills his obligations whether or not it gets sent. (Foggy is often prepared to argue.) But none of it turns out to be necessary. Ms. McMurray melts like an ice cream cone in the sun when Foggy explains himself, her face going softer than he's ever seen it, and then drops a bombshell that blows his mind: postage isn't an issue because Sister Anne, Matt's teacher, is her _actual_ sister, and they see each other every Saturday anyway.

And Foggy doesn't have to wait for class assignments to take advantage of that.

(She also asks if Foggy's ever thought about Instant Messenger, which, yeah, he has, since Matt clearly has some access to a computer; but Foggy's mother has a strict “computer time in the family room only” rule, which is just a “computer time with one sisterly menace hanging off each arm, except maaaaaybe when doing something super, super boring, like a term paper” rule by another name.)

(Foggy knows that the internet is full of naked pictures. Has he seen them? Not under his mom’s roof.)

Easter falls early, in the last week of March, and thanks to the combined efforts of Foggy's mom, Ms. McMurray, Sister Anne, and Matt himself (who, it turns out, can be incredibly persuasive when he wants something), it's the best one ever. Matt spends three nights at Foggy's place, and it's awesome.

Foggy loses at Trivial Pursuit exactly as much as he expected to, and at Nerf wars a little more than expected (Matt has surprisingly good aim). They dye Easter eggs, and when they're dry, hold an epic Easter Egg hunt in the apartment; Matt says he'll be able to find them based off the vinegar and dye smell alone, but Foggy's mom puts some right where he'll brush into them anyway (on the edge of the dining table, on the corner of the kitchen counter), and Foggy doesn't need to be told not to “find” those himself.

It's Matt who ends the hunt by locating the final egg, tucked beneath the refrigerator. Luckily he doesn't seem to be offended by Foggy’s amazement, turning a nice shade of pink and saying, “Told you my sense of smell was good,” while Foggy keeps going, “Dude. _Dude._ ”

It’s so great to be able to do that. To say something, and get Matt’s response right away. To hear his actual voice with his actual ears, and to see him with his actual eyes - Foggy tries not to feel weird and guilty about that last part, but he’s constantly hoarding up images of him like a squirrel, particularly the little glimpses of Matt without his glasses on that he gets first thing in the morning and last thing at night. He mentally pledges to do all his chores without prompting for _weeks_ when his mother, angel that she is, says, “Matt, honey, would you mind if I took a photo of the two of you boys? For me?”

They stand close together on the kitchen, shoulders touching. Foggy knows he’s beaming, and out of the corner of his eye, he can see a smile splitting Matt's face, wide, wide, wide.

Maybe it’s the last day of spring vacation, but Foggy knows there are many more adventures to come. And days with adventures are the best days of all.

**Author's Note:**

> Did the teachers cook up the whole pen pal project in the first place because Sister Anne recognized she had a student who desperately needed to connect with children his own age - but also needed the safety net of distance, and the impetus of a grade? ~We may never know~ ;)
> 
> Always flailing about avocados at [tumblr](http://significantowl.tumblr.com)! :)


End file.
